Examines data including GDP, household debt, and industrial production to show the weakness of the current recovery compared to previous postwar rebounds.
Michael Spence argues that, although research suggests high debt levels have a negative effect on long-term growth, countries cannot restore growth through austerity measures alone.
Generally, for advanced countries with deep and liquid capital markets like the United States, the best policy is to allow these markets to determine exchange rates.
Despite an extended period of economic difficulty, Pew pollsters Andrew Kohut and Michael Dimock show that Americans' core values and beliefs about economic opportunity remain largely optimistic and unchanged.
The prospective challenge of containing inflation, buttressing a collapsed housing market, and normalizing the Federal Reserve's bloated balance sheet has created an "exit strategy" dilemma for Chairman Ben Bernanke. CFR Director of International Economics Benn Steil urges the Federal Reserve to swap mortgage-backed securities with the U.S. Treasury in exchange for Treasury securities, which the Fed can then sell as part of a normal process of monetary tightening.
CFR Director of International Economics Benn Steil urges the Federal Reserve to swap mortgage-backed securities with the U.S. Treasury in exchange for Treasury securities, which the Fed can then sell as part of a normal process of monetary tightening as a solution for the prospective challenge of containing inflation, buttressing a collapsed housing market, and normalizing its bloated balance sheet.
Benn Steil and Dinah Walker explain why the Fed's massive holdings of mortgage-backed securities (MBS) are distorting its thinking about the conduct of monetary policy going forward.They propose a novel plan to rectify this, in which the Fed swaps its MBS with the Treasury in return for Treasury securities, which the Fed can sell as part of a normal "exit" from monetary stimulus.
The results of Europe's experiment with austerity are in and they're clear: it doesn't work. Here's how such a flawed idea became the West's default response to financial crises.
Nobel Laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz discusses how the lack of financial regulation creates market instability which results in inequality, and addresses ways to strengthen both the U.S. and international economy, to prevent further collapse.
The debt crisis that has hammered southern Europe since 2010 will have long-lived economic effects, despite the moderation in Spanish and Italian government borrowing costs since the European Central Bank's "Outright Monetary Transactions" initiative last September.
The IMF launched this report in March 2002, in order "to provide a regular assessment of global financial markets and to identify potential systemic weaknesses that could lead to crises."
Asked by Fagner Dantas, from Universidade Federal da Bahia
The Brazilian government faces a number of challenges and opportunities concerning its economic forecast in the coming years. After peaking at 7.5 percent growth in 2010, Brazil's recent economic slowdown has caused worry that the dream of a new high-growth economy had slipped out of reach.
Eurozone finance ministers gave this statement on March 25, 2013, upon reaching a deal to provide ten billion euros to prevent bankruptcy in the Cyprus's banking system.
George Papandreou interviewed by Christopher Alessi
The EU and IMF should loosen the austerity requirements of Greece's bailout package to allow the indebted country to implement needed growth-enhancing policies, says former prime minister George Papandreou.
The Council on Foreign Relations' David Rockefeller Studies Program—CFR's "think tank"—is home to more than seventy full-time, adjunct, and visiting scholars and practitioners (called "fellows"). Their expertise covers the world's major regions as well as the critical issues shaping today's global agenda. Download the printable CFR Experts Guide.
Special operations play a critical role in how the United States confronts irregular threats, but to have long-term strategic impact, the author argues, numerous shortfalls must be addressed.
The author analyzes the potentially serious consequences, both at home and abroad, of a lightly overseen drone program and makes recommendations for improving its governance.
Two experts argue that despite myriad development strategies, only one can succeed in alleviating poverty in India: the overall growth of the country's economy. More